GUNNISON, Colo. — The West Texas A&M football team had more drama in the final two weeks of the preseason than it did when it actually took the field Saturday for meaningful plays.

The No. 3-ranked Buffs dispatched the Western State Mountaineers, 48-21, in Mike Nesbitt’s first game as interim head coach in front of 752 fans at Mountaineer Bowl in Gunnison, Colo.

“It feels good,” Nesbitt said. “It’s a neat experience for us, no doubt. It’s kind of a sense of relief to have the first one over.”

Nesbitt took the position on Aug. 22 after the university fired former head coach Don Carthel the same day for a violation of an NCAA Division II bylaw under ethical conduct.

The off-field issues continued Tuesday when the university announced the NCAA had opened an investigation into the football program. The university then suspended senior linebacker Kyle Voss indefinitely before Saturday’s game for a separate NCAA rules violation from earlier in the summer.

Still, Nesbitt said his singular goal is to have his team ready for each game on the schedule.

“That’s all water under the bridge,” Nesbitt said. “We’ve got to get ready to play now, and the kids are excited about the games. That’s what we’ve got to worry about now.”

West Texas A&M senior quarterback Dustin Vaughan helped direct the focus on the field with one of the best performances of his career.

Despite the lopsided score, Vaughan played all but the final two series because Nesbitt and offensive coordinator Stephen Lee wanted the offense to regain the rhythm it had in the first half, Nesbitt said.

Vaughan went 37-of-57 for 470 yards with a career-high six touchdown passes without an interception. He had thrown five touchdowns in a single game three times, including when West Texas A&M beat Western State, 57-20, last season in Canyon.

“We had a lot of opportunities,” Vaughan said. “I thought we did really good the first half. The second half was a little slow. We’ve got to get better at coming off the halftime as far as just being able to produce in the second half. We can’t just sleep during the second half and expect to do things.”

The Buffs defense was equally as dominant in the first half when it held Western State to 27 yards.

West Texas A&M defenders also did not allow the Mountaineers to score until backup junior quarterback Ron Dickerson completed a 72-yard touchdown pass to sophomore wide receiver Travis Haney with 11:47 left.

Senior linebacker Taylor McCuller helped lead the defense with six tackles, a fumble recovery and an assist on one of the Buffs four sacks, but he said he was particularly pleased with how the defense played when the Mountaineers crossed the Buffs’ 20-yard line.

“The red zone, on defense, is really when you want to step it up,” McCuller said. “That’s the money down. You don’t want to give up points if you don’t have to, and you want to do everything you can. We created a turnover, and that was huge, real huge.”

Those defensive plays, combined with scores on six of the Buffs first seven possessions, helped West Texas A&M put the game out of reach early.

“They’ve got so many seniors, and they’ve got so much experience at every spot,” Western State head coach Jas Bains said. “That helps, but they’re a good football team.”

But the Buffs are not a satisfied team. West Texas A&M allowed seven sacks and had 22 penalties for 162 yards, and Nesbitt said he wants to clean up the kickoff coverage, which allowed an average of 28 yards per return.

“There was still that first game anxiety; you could see it,” Nesbitt said. “As the game went on, you could see the first game some guys not playing a lot and (third-string) and (fourth-string) having to go out there and play a bit, and some young guys, but that’s going to give us some depth down the road.”

The Buffs’ next game will be against Chadron State, which West Texas A&M beat 38-30 in the 2012 playoffs, at 7 p.m. Thursday as part of the Lone Star Football Festival at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

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for unethical conduct. Pat O'Brien! He has repeatedly lied. He posted on Facebook that if they hadn't fired Carthel, the school could have lost its accreditation. And if they lost their accreditation, they would lose Federal funds including Pell grants. Also, no WT graduate would be accepted in any post-graduate program other than WT's. I called the Southern Association, the regional accrediting agency and asked them if this is true. The lady laughed and asked if this involved athletics. When I said "yes," she said it would have no affect. O'Brien lied to try to convince everyone to quit talking about Carthel's firing.

Then a very vulgar picture was found on O'Brien's Facebook page. It was in his password protected profile page. No one has access to this page but O'Brien. O'Brien explained that a friend of his had sent that to him without his knowledge and he had removed it as soon as he had seen it. It had been on there for 21 months!!! Again, O'Brien lied to try to cover himself.

Then his wife gets on Facebook and explains the vulgar picture the same way her husband had. She assured everyone that O'Brien is a moral man and would never allow anything like that picture on his page, if he had known. Well, if a moral man would not have allowed it, does that mean that O'Brien is an immoral man?

If unethical behavior is grounds for termination, then O'Brien is running on overtime. He should have been canned 3 weeks ago.

More and more stories keep coming out about things that McBroom has done with O'Brien's support! They both need to be gone NOW!!!